My panel is shaping up to be pretty good (if I do say so; but my fellow panelists both have interesting things to say about the process of writing a novel). Here’s our blurb:

When Is a Story a Novel?It’s a favorite comment of workshops everywhere: “You’ve got enough going on here for a novel, not a story!” Well-meaning but confusing: what is “enough” for a novel? If you really have “enough” for a novel, why do you have only 18 pages? Should you take the plunge and expand your story…if so, how to proceed? Three novelists will explore the early stages of novel-writing, offering strategies to help writers at all levels move from 18 pages to 300.

I will be speaking along with Katharine Davis and Maribeth Fischer, and here are their impressive bios:

Katharine Davis began writing fiction in 1999. Capturing Paris (St. Martin’s Press, May 2006) is her first novel. She is completing a second novel that takes place on the coast of Maine.

Maribeth Fischer is the author of two novels, The Language of Goodbye, awarded Virginia Commonwealth University's First Novel Award for 2002 and The Life You Longed For (Simon and Schuster 2007), chosen as a Book Sense Notable Book for April 2007, as well as a Literary Guild alternate selection. Fischer's literary essays have appeared in such journals as The Iowa Review and The Yale Review, and have twice been cited as notable in Robert Atwan's Best American Essays. She has also received a Pushcart Prize for her essay "Stillborn."

The conference also features one-on-one meetings about participants’ manuscripts, literary arts exhibitors, opportunities to meet journal editors, and panels about screenwriting, blogs, and various issues of craft.

Here's where to go for registration and additional information. Perhaps I'll see you there!